Even Hollywood's been breached by the midterm elections! Gloria Allred, apparently bored with muckraking the governor's race, has her sights set on Conviction, the new Hilary Swank film where the actress goes from low-life to lawyer to defend her brother from a murder rap. Go rattle your own saber at Inside Job, the Wall Street corruption doc in limited release at the Landmark. Propositions 20 & 27 aim to change the process of redistricting - what a perfect time for a cinematic primer on Gerrymandering! LAist's own Farley Elliott reviewed Gerrymandering earlier this week. His conclusion? The film "very smartly peeks open the heavy lid of political dullness", but it often "lacks a clear message". This critique cannot be applied to I Want Your Money, whose trailer boasts Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Fox News clips and a cartoon boxing match pitting Obama against Reagan. more ›

When the subject is Andy Kaufman, people seem to divide into two fairly distinct camps: those brilliant few who recognize him as a comic genius years ahead of his time and the fucking idiots who should probably be put to sleep by the government. While Andy Kaufman: World Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion doesn't offer anything new to the devoted Kaufman-phile, it does package it all together nicely. Buy it for a friend or your mom today! Better yet, start an inter-gender wrestling club in your local community! I know I am, girls! more ›

Rarely do major film studios finance films as ambitious as Watchmen and with the middling success the film enjoyed, it's likely to become rarer still. Which is a damn, damn shame. Zach Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel has its share of issues, but he did manage to get Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach and Nite Owl (II) just about perfect which is a huge triumph. Watchmen is a film that deserved greater financial support from the public. Let's hope it finds that support on DVD. I mean seriously, do we want more films like Watchmen or more shit like Transformers 2: Revenge of Shit. Vote with your dollars, people! more ›

I'm a sucker for the general reappropriation of sci-fi narratives by the big screen, and Magnolia Pictures' Mutant Chronicles fits that bill. If you're not a purist, you can freely enjoy the costumes, overacting, and all around ass kicking that often hallmarks these larger-than-life endeavors without feeling disparaged by directorial liberties and script deviations. On the other hand, if you were the original owner of the 1993 role-playing game and gobbled up the subsequent franchise that spawned from its success, you might have to concede to some changes. more ›

Knowing looks so spectacularly bad that it may almost be worth seeing. Nic Cage really is a national treasure. The Apatow brand is so strong these days that a movie like I Love You, Man -- which isn't even an Apatow film -- actually feels like one. I'll see it for the ravishing Rashida Jones alone. Does Julia Roberts still have juice at the box office? The performance of Duplicity will let us know. I'm gonna go with a 'no' on this one. I've never understood the fuss about her anyway. It's still appalling that she beat out Ellen Burstyn for the 2000 Oscar. more ›

How GOOD is Steve Zahn?! LET'S TALK ABOUT IT. Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures. Showmanship in the long-held traditional sense just keeps getting moved more and more to the fringes of contemporary entertainment. Circuses, for all of the revelry and majestical wonder they inspired only a decade ago, are in serious decline. David Blaine and Criss Angel are the magicians and mentalists of our day. Indeed the horizon looks bleak. That is, unless you ask the Great Buck Howard. Or, rather, see the film. more ›

You know how some movies are better because of the audience in the theater with you? I think that's why I enjoyed ?) more ›

How can you resist a movie written and directed by Charlie Kaufman? | Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics more ›

In 1991, "resocialized" murderer and Austrian writer Jack Unterweger visited Los Angeles to pen a story about the difference between attitudes toward prostitution between Europe and the United States. Unterweger's initial long term imprisonment was for killing a prostitute by strangling her with her own bra, but was released after 14 years. While in the the LA area, he killed three prostitutes and fled California, eventually being caught by the FBI in Miami. Once back in Austria, he was convicted of eleven homicides and committed suicide. more ›

Maybe you've got a long lunch and you've been itching to see the inside of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Well, here's one opportunity this Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. The Cathedral's organist, Samuel Salvador Soria will be playing an organ recital. We're not sure what on the program yet, but he's a former prize-winner at the J.S. Bach International Competition at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. If dude can play Bach like... more ›

Who doesn't love Christopher Walken? Even though we've seen True Romance a gazillion times, if it's on Cinemax and it's getting near the scene where Walken and Dennis Hopper deliver their violent conversation, we'll pause our flipping because there's very little on tv better than that. more ›

Tonight - Friday "NBA Basketball" (PRIME, 5:00 p.m.) Clippers @ Spurs "NBA Basketball" (Fox Sports, 7:30 p.m.) Hawks @ Lakers "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (CBS, 8:00 p.m.) Yup, the original, with Burl Ives -- come on misfits, tune in! "Primetime" (ABC, 9:00 p.m.) Diane Sawyer visits North Korea "Battlestar Galactica" (Sci Fi, 9:00 p.m.) New episode! "Charlie Rose" (PBS, 11:30 p.m.): journalist John F. Burns, Stephen Colbert(!!), billionaire Anthony O'Reilly "The Tonight Show With... more ›